On Thursday December 14, a German court announced it will instruct the BND not to retain metadata on on international calls. The BND - an equivalent of the USA's NSA - is responsible for collecting foreign intelligence and uses wiretaps and electronic surveillance extensively to do so.
The lawsuit was brought by Reporters Without Borders/Reporters sans Frontèires/Reporter ohne Grenzen (RSF). This suit focuses on VerAS, a metadata analysis system. Little independent data appears to be available on VerAS in English. According to RSF, VerAS (full name: Verkehrsanalysesystem - literally translated as "traffic analysis system") gathers communications and communication records - including call records, SMS messages and emails.
RSF frequently works with reporters, whistle-blowers and other populations vulnerable to retaliation, both domestic to Germany and abroad. For these populations, being able to communicate confidentially about legal matters may be the difference between freedom and prison. RSF argues that knowing this communication is being spied on interferes with its mission by significantly increasing the risk these communications are exposed. This in turn creates a chilling effect, where the vulnerable populations are afraid to reach out and their issues may go unheard.
RSF says that "under these circumstances, the media can no longer fulfill its role as a pillar of control in a democratic society."
In Germany, surveillance must explicitly be authorized under the "G10 law". This law regulates the secrecy of mail and telecommunications. RSF argues that the BND is not authorized to run VerAS under the G10 law.
The German Federal Administrative Court announced on Thursday (linked press release in German) its intent to find that using VerAS to store telephony metadata violates the G10 law. In short, the court intends to find that collection of telephone metadata is legal only when it is compared against pre-defined search criteria. They intend to find that metadata collected legally may not be stored. Finally, they will find that the anonymization of metadata performed by VerAS is not equivalent to the deletion of the data required by law.
The BND says it will wait for the release of the full decision before commenting.
This lawsuit is part of a larger set of lawsuits on German mass surveillance. RSF is currently appealing other lawsuits to the Eurpean Court of Human Rights.
Thaw America will continue to follow and report on this story as it develops.
Speak German? (We don't.) Want to help translate? Found an inaccuracy? Have a comment or question? Please email spresser@thawamerica.org